Category: About Books

I read to learn new things, to understand the world, to challenge myself. I’ve always been the kind of person that, when I read a good book that references another book, I want to go read that other book. I want to know… well, everything, really.

I was up late readingJoplin’s Ghost by Tananarive Due. The main character, Phoenix, is a musician who becomes haunted by the ghost of Scott Joplin. I know who Scott Joplin is, and everyone’s heard The Entertainer, but there were a lot of other pieces mentioned, as well as other musicians. So I pulled up YouTube and listened to some guy play a dozen Joplin pieces on the piano while I continued to read. The next day, I looked up Jacob Lawrence’s Dream I, so I could see the painting Due described and better imagine the room Phoenix was in.

Jacob Lawrence’s Dreams #1

When I was getting my BA in English 15 years ago, I had one professor who was very excited about the future of texts, where authors would embed links to other content in other media to enhance the experience and to make it something more than just reading. At the time, it seemed mildly interesting. But being the driver of my own hypertext experience has definitely enriched my reading life.

Now, I get irritated when I google for something and the internet does not offer it right up to me, as if its entire reason for existing is to help me read my book. I remember going camping with my friend and reading Virginia Woolf and being frustrated that I couldn’t look up the words I didn’t know, since we had no cellular coverage.

Multi-language users use code-switching to speak directly to their communities. Lit that likes to consider itself high-brow makes a habit of adding different languages and obscure references to signal its class. These texts can now be appreciated by those of us it maybe wasn’t intended for.

How different are these books without all of this outside information so readily available? Would I have liked Joplin’s Ghost as much if I hadn’t heard those songs? I loved the book, it’s fantastic. But that richer experience is something I love, too.

I recently read The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson. This book is lovely, but I was immediately reminded of something Daniel José Older said (which I cannot find) about writing for those who rarely get to be the main character but don’t need to be reminded that they are already fully human. Or being tired of only having POC protagonists in books where that humanity was finally proven to all at the end.

I’m past the point in my life and my feminism where I need someone to remind/convince me that I am as much a whole person as anyone else who isn’t straight/cis/white/male. I much prefer to read about women who are just living their fucking lives and does she even know people think she shouldn’t? Only when they get in her way as she rolls over them, and no, she will not apologize. This is likely why speculative fiction appeals to me so much. Kameron Hurley, N K Jemisin, Ann Leckie, Nnedi Okorafor and many more are building worlds where women are the default gender, where genders come in numbers greater than two, where women can be anything and are indeed everything.

Once you get there, it’s hard to go back to sweet, wonderfully written books about proper young ladies who must hide their ambitions in order to keep the pathetically underpaid work they managed to acquire only with good connections – books in which the lower-class women who work even harder and make even less money are invisible. Give me head-chopping bounty hunters and world-destroying goddesses any day of the week.

I’ve mostly been posting about travel and whatnot, but I’m going to start writing about books again more regularly. For certain values of ‘regularly.’

I read this because I was talking to my son about books – he recently started reading for pleasure at the ripe old age of 24. This was one of the few (non-school, non-Harry Potter) books he’d ever read.

Dreams Underfoot – Charles de Lint RR

Debt: the first 5000 years – David Graeber NF

This is a mind-altering book. It’s not a finance book, it’s an anthropology book about the human process of money and how we’ve used debt or money or whatever to share goods and services between ourselves. Completely changed how I relate to things like economic news and saving money. I read this for a book club I was in briefly – it lasted 3 months after I joined, coincidence?

Memoirs are my new thing – I blame Lidia Yuknavitch & Cheryl Strayed. This one is the story of an only child experiencing the loss of her mother as a young woman, and then her father a few years later.

Flight Behavior – Barbara KingsolverThe Round House – Louise Erdrich

Seriously – new Kingsolver followed by new Erdrich – does NOT get any better. And these two are quite possibly the best that either has written. Incredible.

I had to re-read this because I was headed to Arizona with my sister. Just as powerful and well-written as I remember.

Z : A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald – Therese Anne Fowler

This book made me hate Ernest Hemingway, and colored my opinion of F. Scott Fitzgerald forever. The fictionalized account of Zelda Fitzgerald’s life (based on the real facts, with the empty spaces extrapolated). Now I see things like Midnight in Paris (a great flick) and think NO!! She was robbed! I was sitting by the pool in Arizona and PISSED at the way she was treated.

Another life-shaking book. How we develop habits, how we can substitute new ones for old ones. How data mining is allowing big business to use our habits to send business their way. Fascinating for anyone who likes psychology or wants to revamp their life.

Girlchild – Tupelo Hassman

This one read like a fantastic memoir. The writing was impressive.

Redshirts – John Scalzi (audio)

Every sci-fi geek seriously needs to read this. The ‘extras’ on a surprisingly-similar-to-the-Enterprise spaceship start to question why (for instance) the Captain goes on almost every away mission, but the only people who die are those wearing red shirts. Smart and funny.

Okay, it’s not a book – but it’s hella long and I read every post. 892 posts going back to 2005. A knitting blog written by a gay man in Chicago – I don’t knit, nor am I a man, or gay – but it is wonderful. I always seem to find awesome blogs just as their taking off and the bloggers are too busy to post any longer.

Memoir of a woman who worked for the Park Service in Glacier National Park in Montana (just down the road from my sister’s house) and Denali National Park in AK. Woman working in a man’s world and kicking ass.

Beautiful Ruins – Jess Walter (audio)Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman

NEW GAIMAN. And possibly better than American Gods, though very different. Loved this muchly.

Again a book where the language transports you into this man’s world. He’s a columnist at The Atlantic and knocks me out with his analysis and his writing.

The Dragon Reborn – Robert JordanEye of the World – Robert JordanKnife of Dreams – Robert JordanTower of Midnight – Brandon Sanderson/ Robert Jordan

Had this idea for a blog comparing the rampant sexism in the Song of Ice & Fire to the much more progressive Wheel of Time – got lost in the research and never finished it. Have three or four drafts somewhere that maybe I’ll get back to one day.

Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel

Another book I picked up and couldn’t put back down. Was really glad Bringing up the Bodies was waiting for me when I got home. Read this in Alaska while I was there in August.

The Shining Girls – Lauren Beukes

Trippy time-travel horror fiction. I liked Zoo City better, but this was a great read.

King Rat – China Miéville

Early Mieville. Didn’t like it, didn’t finish it. Or maybe I was just in a hurry to get to Bringing up the Bodies.

Bringing Up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel

Just as compelling as Wolf Hall.

The Shelter Cycle – Peter Rich

An interesting little book about two kids who grew up in a weird cult and their very different experiences as adults after it falls apart.

This is the first book of Perry’s I read, and I fell in love. He came to Powell’s, signed my books and he was great. He’s the perfect blend of the blue-collar people I come from and the high-falutin’ lit people I call my own.

Warbreaker – Brandon Sanderson

As the writer who did such a good job of finishing Robert Jordan’s masterpiece, I wanted to check out his own stuff. Loved this book a lot.

This book might be the reason I quit my job and run away. She spends a month in different countries – a small-boat guided tour of Greek islands, Portugal, Spain, Fez, more I can’t remember. She has a thing for tile & mosaics like I do, and she likes to experience her locations through food. Want.

The Rice Room – Ben Fong-Torres NF

The autobiography (not really a memoir) of the editor of Rolling Stone. I mostly picked it up because he’s portrayed in the movie Almost Famous and I loved his name. The story of a second-generation Chinese immigrant made good (with lots of info on San Francisco in the 60s and 70s).

Was jonesing for Austen but read them all recently, so I went with Bronte.

Uglies – Scott Westerfeld

I was at my sister’s in Montana and didn’t like any of the books I’d brought with me, so I was trolling the house for something to read and my niece handed me this. I stayed up until 2am on Christmas night finishing it in one go. YA post-apocalyptic fiction. Just finished book four, Extras, last night.

I read a lot of books last year. 139 averages out to about 1 book every 2.6 days. My intention was to make comments about my favorite books and where I was when I read certain books, etc. But this has been a draft for a few weeks now – so I’m just going to post it without embellishment. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have (like – how the heck did I read 139 books when I worked 3 jobs last year?).

Sheri S. Tepper. Somehow I missed her. A FANTASTIC sci-fi/fantasy author who’s been publishing award-winning novels since the Eighties and I don’t recall even hearing her name. Wikipedia has her as an author ‘particularly known as a feminist science fiction writer.’ If I’d heard that before, obviously I would have run to the library to check her out! But it’s never too late, and who doesn’t love finding a new favorite that has DECADES of writing behind her – meaning there’s lots of books waiting to be read.

It was John Scalzi who waved the flag for me – he wrote about Grass being one of ten sci-fi books that mean the most to him. He lauds her as a world-builder equal to Frank Herbert, and a better writer of characters than most. That’s a huge recommendation, and I was in the market for a new book. The library had Grass immediately available (it was written in 1993) so I got it right away.

I devoured it, and it was everything he said and more. A great example of how the science and fantasy elements of this genre are not separate things, but , in the right hands, the best way to build a new world and populate it with beings, human and other. The plot and characters are impressive, but the theme put me over the top. I’m a die-hard believer in cooperation over competition, and Tepper makes a case for love and trust winning over separation and fear that includes a future Earth of scant resources and fringe religious groups in power, and other worlds full of rainbow grass, murderous horse-like animals and mind-reading alien wildcats that will keep you turning the pages until early in the morning. It was my first Tepper and so far my favorite.

It’s the second book by a new (to me, in this case) author that can really tell the tale. Sometimes that first book is an aberration, or a side trip, or a pinnacle, and the rest is average fare (or worse). So I approached Singer from the Sea with great hope and a bit of trepidation. Could she hit the same bar as Grass a second time, or even get close to it? Yes, she can. Singer from the Sea holds themes similar to Grass (environmental disaster back home, new worlds populated by familiar-seeming humans doing stupid things), but the world-building and character development are equally engaging and I again stayed up way too late.

I started Grass on October 23, and I’ve read three more Tepper novels after Singer;The Waters Rising, The Companions and The Gate to Women’s Country. Not a dud in the bunch. The only negative to reading them all in a row is the repetitive themes feel, well, repetitive. But even that very minor caveat is more an artifact of my reading them one after the other than any borrowing or repeating of story. Each world looks and feels different, each heroine (because, yes, each book has a female protagonist) is her own unique individual and each plot wanders a different road, a different fork and arrives somewhere new. The Gate to Women’s Country stands alone as a more negative view of the future (and no aliens). It reminded me so much of The Handmaid’s Talethat I had to go back and read that again.

Yes, the artwork IS awful, but I promise all the insides are wonderful.

Wikipedia has 34 novels listed for Tepper, plus various shorter works, poetry and essays (she wrote pamphlets for Planned Parenthood in the 60s and 70s!).

Here’s the answer to the two questions I get most often – ‘what have you read lately?’ and ‘what are you reading now?’ It’s going to be Tepper, Tepper, Tepper for a while!